Proper DVD setup

MagicAlex · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 98

I'm finding myself running around in circles here. I don't know how to properly set up my DVD player in Linux, and searching this board didn't give me any definite answers. It's a plain old IDE Panasonic DVD drive. It's detected and I can mount DVDs on them, but nothing seems to recognize them as DVDs and I certainly can't play any movies off of it. I've emerged both MPlayer and Totem, and neither one seems to work. Any help would be appreciated.

greatguru · n00b Joined: 01 Apr 2003 Posts: 6

I don't normally use DVD's, b/c generally if I'm watching a movie I don't normally have the disc.....

Anyway, try xine. I hear its a great dvd movie player with several different frontends.

Their site: http://xinehq.de/ Its also def. in portage, as well as a few different frontends.

Cheers,

-Ben

noergeli · Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 9:51 am Post subject:

If you can mount them, you should be able to play them. Mplayer expects DVDs at /dev/dvd. This has to point to your drives /dev entry. If you don't have the dvd device in /dev, create a symlink to the real device or specify the right device in mplayers settings. If this doesn't solve it, any error messages would be helpful.

AbsturZ · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 90

you should try the following:

1. emerge libdvdcss (for css decryption)
2. insert a dvd but _do not_ mount it
3. start mplayer from console by: mplayer (-ao arts/... [optionally for sound daemons]) --dvd-device /dev/WHATEVER dvd://n [n for the title on dvd (mostly 1 or 2; but the console output will give you the number of titles on the dvd)]
4. if the dvd starts properly modify your mplayer.conf to always use this dvd device

this plays the most dvds at my machine (i found only one yet which isn't playable).

btw: even if the dvd doesn't startup the console output will give you some hints how to modify your configuration files

_________________
Es steht niemandem frei, Christ zu werden: man wird zum Christentum nicht "bekehrt" - man muss krank genug dazu sein ...
[F.W. Nietzsche: "Der Antichrist"]

MagicAlex · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Posts: 98

Thanks, I discovered my problem by going to the xine website and reading their FAQ. The first problem was that I was mounting the DVDs, so I stopped doing that. Next, I discovered that there's a bug in X.Org that prevents xine-lib from properly displaying video, so I added the appropriate option (Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps") and it works like a charm. I watched an episode of Star Trek: Voyager last night.